


Bunting, Bolsters, and the Last of the Pre-War Sherry

by Jay Tryfanstone (tryfanstone)



Category: Enemy Brothers - Constance Savery
Genre: Exchange at Fic Corner 2019, Exchange at Fic Corner Pinch Hit, Gen, London, VE Day, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 09:18:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryfanstone/pseuds/Jay%20Tryfanstone
Summary: It was not, of course, the end of the war. In Burma, in Malaysia, in the atolls and islands of the Pacific, the war roared on, mangling in its bloody rage young men and women from all the nations of the world. But in the weary countries of Europe, across the ravaged Russian steppes, in the fired wastes of northern Norway, in the ruined villages of France and the battered cities of Poland and Hungary, VE day was a longed-for and bittersweeet marvel.





	Bunting, Bolsters, and the Last of the Pre-War Sherry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katarina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katarina/gifts).

It was not, of course, the end of the war. In Burma, in Malaysia, in the atolls and islands of the Pacific, the war roared on, mangling in its bloody rage young men and women from all the nations of the world. But in the weary countries of Europe, across the ravaged Russian steppes, in the fired wastes of northern Norway, in the ruined villages of France and the battered cities of Poland and Hungary, VE day was a longed-for and bittersweeet marvel.

Tony, who had known for endless months now that the war would come to an end, months of prayers when he set himself, on his knees with his fists clenched, against any idea God might have of taking Dym now when peace was so close, still could not quite believe the news. He had not realised how much of him still believed in the golden glory of the Reich. For two years he had longed for and dreaded the moment when the panzers crested the long ridge of the downs, the arrival of his giant blond cousins and following them, the security police, who would have taken Thomas and James and Tony himself for the army. There were boys serving in the Wehrmacht now whom he had gone to school with, boys he had marched and sung with in the _Jungvolk_. Then the police would have come for Margaret, with her lame leg, and then Mortimer, because Mortimer, Tony knew, would not have kept silent as a good German should.

But instead it was the panzers which were silent, and in their place Tony could hear the wild, sweet song of a skylark, high above the meadow, and in the shell-hole beneath the soles of his boots a matronly rabbit inspected dandelion leaves amidst the tall grass. The bluebells were giving ground to the bright yellows of buttercups and Welsh poppies, and the hawthorns were so heavy with may blossom the sweetness of it hung in the air, like honey. The soil was damp still, after the passing showers of dawn, but the sky was a clear blue, just as it had been in the long summers of his childhood, above the peach orchards and vineyards where he had laughed and played with Kunz, when Kunz had been a puppy and Tony had been Max, wearing his patched grey serge shorts and the red leather suspenders he had loved so much.

On this day when the war ended, he had expected the clarion bells of celebration, but not the single tolling bell-tone that rang out across the fields, sombre and solitary. The sound of it pooled in his middle, a deep and heavy imperative, so that for all his resolution Tony thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and clutched the wallet with its small and necessary treasures. That single treble bell rang alone for a long time, and then, all at once, all the bells called out in one great repeating peel, triumphant and restrained. Tony had a lump in his throat, listening. He thought, as he had done more and more frequently in these last months of the war, as the armies closed on Germany, of Mutti and Vater, and offered a swift, desperate prayer that they were somewhere safe.

There were halting steps behind him, and then a shadow over his shoulder.

"It's a quarter peel." If anyone would have come after him, he would have expected James, but it was Margaret sat down beside him in her stiffened lace-up boots and oilskin gaiters. "The vicar wanted a full peel, but Gussy Willis pointed out that none of the ringers were under a half-century, and they'd be stopping for tea and sandwiches, thank 'ee very much, war or no war." 

The bells rang in mathematical sequence. Tony followed it, head on one side.

"When the war is over-" Margaret said, and then she said, firmly, "Now the war is over, I expect you'll be in London far more often. I heard the Philharmonic play Mahler's second, once, in St Clement's. He scores a full round of bells at the end. The pews were turned around, so we faced the bell tower."

"Vater had a gramophone recording," said Tony, and found his own voice small and tight. "Until Tante Bettina made him throw it away." He could feel Margaret retreat. "I loved the bells," he said. "And sometimes Vater would - move his hands, as if-" Vater had never been a demonstrative parent. He had never been Tony's father at all.

"I'm sorry we haven't heard from them." Margaret said.

"It's all right," said Tony. "They could be anywhere, you know." But Dym was good at finding people. Dym was very, very good at finding people, and Dym had promised he would find Mutti and take Tony to see her. "There's enough hate in the world already," he'd said.

"And I'm awfully glad to be here," he said in a rush. He could say this to Margaret, who understood the black rage and the skylark joy and the music, and who knew how to be quiet.

They listened to the bells. At last, the peel finished, and the silence was as urgent as the clamour, waiting, anticipatory.

"Oh, that's where you are!" James shouted. "We've been looking for you this age! Mortimer's got the MG out, and I packed your rucksack, Tony - we've going to London!" 

Mortimer had got the MG out. It had spent the war under sheeting, in the stables, but now it puttered happily on the cobbles, freshly polished, and occasionally exploding little puffs of smoke from its exhaust. It was bright red, as a sports car should be, and Mortimer was equally pink. His grin was that of a much younger man. "You and James can share the front seat," he said. "Careful not to jog the brake handle. Everyone else is going with Thomas in the Daimler."

"They'll never fit!" said Tony. There were two Aged Aunties, who were actually one great aunt and one second cousin, and the two real cousins Mary and Mousie. Once there had been three, but Porgie was in Europe now, with the Royal Artillery. There was Tony's big sister Phemie and his littler sister Sally, and the twins Simon and Judy who were not nearly as small as they had been when Tony came to White Priory. And then there was Vera, and Nanny, and then there were the four evacuees and their young teacher, Miss Cadbury. Every single person who had found a home at the _White Priory_.

"Oh, you wait and see," said Mortimer. His grin broadened, and then Jimmy Thistle who had lost an arm at Boises drove up with the tractor trailer, sparkling clean and festooned with red, white and blue rosettes. 

The town was half full of bunting and half full of people on ladders, precariously affixing bunting to every nook and cranny. Tony had not thought there was so much bunting in the world, but there it was, of every shade, every flag fluttering as gaily as any spring washing line. There was bunting on all the shop windows and around some of the doors, there was a bonfire that was already almost as tall as the bandstand being built on the village green, and there were trestle tables outside the churchyard with sandwiches and lemonade. There were the Women's Institute tea urns, and the Mother's Union crockery, and all the members of both busy and happy as a hive of bees in sunshine. Every car and truck in the county seemed to be driving down Main Street, windows open, horns pipping, packed with land girls and Polish airmen from the airfield where Dym had once been stationed. There was an ecstatic retriever, head out the window, ears in the wind, a massive rosette on its collar. There was Butcher Jones, in his blue and white striped apron with a cleaver in one hand, performing a stately jig for the benefit of four small and very happy children and a indifferent tabby cat. There were flags, and loudspeakers, and people practicing trombones, and when they got to the station there was a complete marching band in uniform, even if their uniforms smelled strongly of mothballs and half the band had no hair and had to sit down after every tune to catch their breath. 

"The next train to London, please," said Thomas firmly, as the Ingleford family collected its luggage and sorted itself into its component parts. "Tickets for twenty."

"Oh, get on with you, Mr Ingleford," said the station master. "There's no timetable today. Everyone's going up to town. The signal station's given us a wave, next train in five, so you just squeeze on. Mind you take your luggage!" he warned, waving them through the barrier.

"Well, I do hope someone is manning the junction at Orrington Magna," muttered one of the aunts.

Tony felt his breath catch. After that last tenth attempt, he had promised Dym no more running away, and there had been no more running away, and so he had somehow mislaid the fact that the train to London went through Orrington Magna. Orrington Magna was where Dym was stationed, in the top secret air base Uncle Frank the German Spy had tried so hard to find. Dym could not possibly know they were on the train and could not possibly be waiting on the platform, yet Tony still found himself filled with hope.

"Oh, do come on, dreamer," sad James, and kicked him on the ankle. The _Admiral Fisher_, all flags flying, was steaming into the station.

The train was packed, but somehow all the Inglefords and their luggage managed to squeeze themselves onto it. The evacuees were in another carriage altogether, only the aunts had seats, and Phemie was enthroned on a pile of suitcases, but most of the boys were in the corridor, waving out of the open windows as they passed through stations decked out in bunting and churches flying banners that looked as if they might date to the Crimean War. It seemed impossible that a single other person could squeeze onto the train, yet somehow they managed to fit in a retired librarian, and her book, and her spare book, and her Pomeranian, asleep in a wicker basket, and two fat babies and their mother, still in her pinafore, going home to Chatham, a black American G.I. with a thin, grave face and the fine hands of a concert pianist, a Co-operative undertaker, in tweed and glasses, and on the station at Orrington Magna two small boys and their gas masks who were only going one stop, home, because this was no day for school. 

The passenger Tony hoped for was not there. The English, of all shapes and sizes, hustled and bustled, good-humouredly searching for space, hefting their suitcases, shouting to each other - have you heard the news! The Prime Minster - Oh, dear lord save us, I never thought - such a relief - my son - so proud of her, but - 

Although Tony strained his eyes, hands clenched on the windowsill, leaning so far out James had a hand on his belt, there was no slim figure in air force blue. 

The station master bellowed, "All aboard, now! Next train in fifteen! Stand away from the platform, please!"

The whistle blew, and there was no Dym. Betrayed, Tony pulled back from the window. James pulled a sympathetic face, and offered a sticky humbug, but Tony turned his head away. The train started with a jerk, and at the far end of the platform two uniformed figures hobbled up the steps. One of them was - one of them was - 

"Stop!" cried Tony, reached up, and yanked the communication chain.

James' eyes grew wide. The two truant schoolboys stopped whispering to each other. As the train juddered to a halt, brakes squealing, the librarian clung to her book and the undertaker his glasses. Tony's grip was so tight the chain links cut into his fingers.

The sign above the window was horribly clear, PENALTY FOR IMPROPER USE, FIVE POUNDS. Tony had five pounds, just about, all the savings he had in the world, tied up in a handkerchief in Thomas' desk drawer, at home at the _White Priory_. 

"I say, I say," shouted the station master, thumping along the platform. "What's the problem?"

Tony swallowed. He took his eyes off the chain, and looked out of window. Improper use, he thought. What, exactly, was...?

But it was Dym.

"Move out the way, you chump," James said, and flung open the carriage door. "It's my brother!" he shouted to the station master. 

Dym, waiting on the platform while his companion passed up a pair of crutches, looked sideways, to Tony. His eyes were smiling, in that way he had when he was amused, but did not want to show he was laughing. Tony look a deep breath, and felt himself lighten all over in response. There was an answering smile in him, somewhere around his tummy, light as feather and travelling upwards.

"Well, young man," the station master said, arriving at last and fixing Tony with a gimlet eye. "Stopping the London train! Today, of all days!"

"Today, of all days," said Dym quietly, and held out his hand. "Captain Ingleford, sir. That's my brother on the train. Two of my brothers, in fact. Could I ask you, if you wouldn't mind..." he was passing the station master a folded piece of white paper, in wonderful sleight of hand. "...pay the fine for him," he said. "Of course, utmost respect for the authorities..."

"I dare say, in the circumstances," said the station master, "an exception could be made. Perfectly reasonable. It's not every day we win the war." And he obligingly shut the door on Dym and his companion, stepped back, produced an elegant flourish of his signal flag, and blew the sharpest blast on his whistle Tony had ever heard.

A little slower than usual, the engine hissed, blew steam down the tracks, and heaved the carriages onwards.

"Hello, James," said Dym. "Hello, disrupter of HIs Majesty's railway service. Good to see you both. Are you headed into town?" Then he added, catching Sally's eye. "The girls, too?"

"Everyone," said James grimly, for in the bucket seat of the MG he had been underneath, not just Tony, but two rucksacks and Aunt Penelope's dressing case with its bronzed corners. "Except Great Aunt Desdemona," he added hastily, for Dym, generally, took a dim view of untruths. "Mary's looking after her."

"It seems you'll have the pleasure of meeting the Inglefords _en masse_," Dym said, to his travelling companion.

"I've become accustomed to large families," said the travelling companion. He wore the dark uniform of the Navy as if born to it, and the four gold braid bands of his captaincy looked as if they were accustomed to sitting quietly on his coat sleeves. His beard was white, and there were few threads of dark brown left in his hair under the level brim of his cap, but his eyes were a familiar blue. "But one of them, at least, I've met before. Hello, Anthony," the Captain said. "Thank you for the drawings."

Tony drew himself up. "Hello, sir," he said steadily, and held out his hand.

~*~

The Inglefords had a service flat in Belgravia, and were clearly used to making do with blankets and camping mattresses, for there was enough bedding for everyone and beds for nearly half of them. The Captain even got his own room, in the closet off the boy's bedroom, with a bedside lamp and just enough space for him to prop up his crutches. He'd done his best to persuade the Inglefords to let him stay at a hotel, but the house with its four square windows and two chimneys he'd described to Tony so long ago, when he had been Max, was long gone, and Thomas would not hear of any friend of Dym's staying anywhere but with family.

"Sally, have you seen the bolster?" said Phemie, hurrying through the hall with a stack of blankets. "I was sure it was in the old wardrobe, but there's nothing in there but bottles of sherry."

Thomas stiffened, sharp as one of his own spaniels. "The Amontillado?" he said. "Phemie. I thought old Johnson had drunk the last of it in '43."

"How should I know what sherry it is?" exclaimed Phemie. "James, dear, could you take a look at the wireless? It's nearly three."

"Oh, do sit down, Euphemia," called Aunt Penelope. "Mr Churchill is just about to speak!"

"Do you think he'll talk about demobilisation?" asked Mary.

Porgy was somewhere beyond the Rhine. 

"I hope he talks about the end of the war," said Margaret tartly, and then added, "Everyone hopes he'll talk about demobilisation. But think of the news reels. Half the young men of Europe are in uniform, and the countryside in ruins. It'll take time to bring people home."

"There is a great deal of work still to be done," said the Captain. 

"Quite so," said Margaret. Her knitting needles clattered. 

"I say!" called Judy. "You'll never guess what Pevensie's had under the counter!" 

The front door slammed, wnd there was a promising rustle of paper bags and rattle of tins. 

"You know what I said about the black market!" said Phemie. 

"But it's the end of the war!" exclaimed Simon. "And we've got cheese! And fruit cake!" 

"Fruit cake," said Aunt Addie, softly. 

"Cheese," said James reverently. "Phemie! Where does the toasting fork live?"

"Oh, honestly!" said Phemie.

The Captain had a seat on the settee, by virtue of being walking wounded, although he had confessed that he had actually sprained his ankle clearing out his first officer's guttering in Portsmouth. Thus, he said, it was not a war wound at all and would certainly not interfere with his next tour of duty. Dym had the seat next to him, by virtue of friendship, and Tony was curled up at Dym's knees with his sketchbook and a needlepoint cushion stuffed with horsehair, which some long-ago Ingleford had deemed suitable for floor-sitting. It slid, abominably, on the polished floorboards. Tony clung to Dym's trouser cuffs with Dym's fingers occasionally ruffling his hair, and thought himself so lucky he was effervescent with it, like seltzer water. 

"Hello, old chap," said Dym softly, as the youngest Inglefords battled with the bread knife and the fruit cake. "Comfortable down there?"

"I'm fine," said Tony. He leaned a little closer, so that his back was against Dym's hard, knobbly shin bone.

Dym touched his hair, feather-light. "I'm sorry about the war," he murmured.

Tony swallowed down the lump in his throat. "I'm not," he said stoutly, and leaned in harder. Dym dropped his hand a little, so that his fingertips rested on Tony's neck, just under his hairline, warm and comforting. 

"Oh, do be quiet, _please_," said Phemie, in such a tone of voice that James was silenced half-way through a sentence and Sally let out an inadvertent squawk. The radio announcer said, "And now, a message from-" 

"And of course," said Margaret, unperturbed, to the Captain, into the sudden silence, "Now that my application to UNRRA has been accepted, I intend-"

"Margaret Artemisia Ingleford!" exclaimed Phemie.

"_Quiet!_" roared Thomas.

The wireless crackled. "My dear friends," said the Prime Minister, that great, flawed leader, who had encouraged and bullied and personified his nation as no other man could have done, and led them in the end to safe harbour. "This is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class..."

"Well, I say," said Thomas, afterwards. "Makes one proud to be English. Dym, you'll join me in a glass of sherry, before we head out?" He peered doubtfully at Judy, and then nodded. "One glass each," he said. "It's not every day we win the war."

"UNRRA," said Phemie.

"My sister's in Berlin," said the Captain. "She's a Quaker, so of course she couldn't resist poking her nose in, but from what she writes, every pair of hands will be needed if we're to get back to anything approaching an even keel."

"I'm not sure yet where I'll be posted," said Margaret. "But I'd be glad of the introduction."

Dym stood up. "Of course," he said. "We packed the glasses away in '39, though, so I hope everyone brought a tooth mug." 

"We can't drink sherry from a tooth mug!" exclaimed Phemie.

"Penelope and I boxed up the Royal Worcester," sad Aunt Addie. "It's in the pantry. There were plenty of coffee cups, as I remember."

"Oh, yes," said Aunt Penelope. "Thomas, dear, the boxes are right at the back, under the bolster."

"Oh, _really_," said Phemie, whisking out of her seat, towards the missing bolster.

"Cheese on toast," said Simon, happily.

"With fruit cake," added Judy. She and Simon, well trained, were clearing off the occasional tables and side stands. 

"...the king and queen, on the balcony at Buckingham palace..." said the BBC announcer, before his voice was drowned in the roar of the crowd. 

"Our dear, dear king and queen," said Aunt Penelope, accepting a gold-trimmed tea cup, with a generous measure of the '34 Montalban Amontillado McCutcheons had been selling for 12/- a bottle before the war.

"Thank you," said the Captain, to fruit cake and sherry. He juggled both, expertly.

"Drink it slowly," Dym said to Tony, quietly, and handed him down a small cup, with a pair of painted dachshunds in pink hunting jackets. 

"...sound of the..." said the BBC.

"We'll go out, afterwards," said Phemie decisively. "To the Palace."

"I'm not sure I like sherry," said Judy doubtfully. 

"You have it in trifle, silly," said her twin.

James burnt his fingers on the toast, the wireless announcer was alarmingly breathless, and Dym settled back into his seat. Tony leaned into the comfort of his brother's touch, and was suddenly, fiercely glad that he was celebrating the end of the war here, in this shabby flat in London, with brothers and sisters, and not in that lonely, cold house in Germany. He missed Mutti terribly, but he wanted to live in a country where he could pull the communication cord to rescue Dym from the station platform, and everyone think it perfectly reasonable in the circumstances.

"Well," said Thomas, beaming, lifting up his nursery beaker. "To the Inglefords!"


End file.
